A ShoutoutLA Interview

In February I was approached by a lifestyle magazine from LA with the question whether I was interested to do an interview with them. Since my last interview was quite some time ago, I decided to do it. I realized that I am way more passionate about my business than I thought I am. Here you can read a short report of my long entrepreneurial way with AION from 2003 to 2024.

See the full article here: https://shoutoutla.com/meet-stefani-peter-visual-artist-entrepreneur/
unfortunately the website is often updating content and so the article is sometimes not available.

So I made my own version again and added some more images from the past:

1 | RISKS

I took a lot of risks in my life, personal, financial, and professional risks. Not all of them I calculated carefully before going ahead.

Most of the time I made decisions in a split second and I am proud of my gut feeling. As an optimist and I fundamentally believe that everything will end well. 

Professionally, I took a risky leap from spending my life in the security of a German teaching job to fulfilling my dream of becoming a freelance artist. I was already 29 years old. It was a great decision. I was super happy, became successful quickly and was awarded two Fine Arts Grants with 36. I travelled the world to show my art and while being in Vancouver, Canada as visiting artist at Malaspina Printmaker Society, I met a guy. He worked in Film and TV as an art director and after some dates, he suggested we could start a gallery business together and rent out copyright cleared art to Hollywood North’s Film Industry.
Wow, that was an impressive and tempting proposal.

I fell in love with Vancouver, Malaspina and the guy, knowing that this was a massive professional, financial and emotional risk.
But it sounded as if in one of the most beautiful cities in the world another dream was coming true. It seamed that the law of attraction had brought me exactly everything I had wished for. I thought about it for a while. There was a small voice saying, wait, don’t you think you make yourself dependant? But believing that I could be both, an international artist and a gallery owner,  I took the risk. I moved with over 850 pieces of art and all the money from selling my house to Canada.

Now, 20 years later, while working with all the big Film and TV Production Companies and being the sole owner of this fabulous business called AION, I finally can breath freely and reflect on my decisions.
Financially it was a big success, so in this respect I was very lucky.

Professionally it turned out positive and negative. Positive, because I learned to become a successful female entrepreneur. But it was for me very negative that I was forced to nearly completely give up my own artistic career.
Emotionally it was a complete failure for 15 years. Now in the last 5, it turned slowly, bit by bit into happiness and contentment. I am saying this with deep gratitude for everything I experienced.

Life without risks is impossible. Every action, even crossing a street, carries inherent risks. We have to learn and grow till we die. I trust that it is possible to find a way out of even the deepest hole.

2 | AION

In 2002 my husband found a storefront on Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant Main Street. At that time it was a very gritty location. We bought it together and started to transform a dance studio into an art gallery.

Simultaneously I was painting in my wonderful studio on Terminal Street for the opening exhibition, learned international copyright law and how colour manage and print photographs on a large scale Epson Giclee Printer.

AION Cleared Art for Film started out as AION Art Gallery on Main and 7th in a space beautifully renovated by my husband. We opened June 2003 with an exhibition of drawings and lithographs by German-Canadian artist Brigitte Potter-Mael and my Urban Water series paintings.

I ran the gallery, did all the marketing for 15 art exhibitions, made CD’s with rental inventory for our Film clients, painted, and felt my real art career being pushed back more and more. I had to give up my studio space and started to feel depressed and unhappy, but kept going.

By 2015, the business had already outgrown its 3rd location. 2500 pieces were crammed in our shelves and we had taken on 35 contributing artists. In addition, I had started to paint large scale commissions for various film clients, including a 24 ft x 4 ft painting for the Twilight Saga: New Moon. I needed more room to paint! So, with the help of friends, AION moved to an industrial space on 2nd Ave in Burnaby, very close to the film studios. 

There the business really took off. We added more staff and art, expanded into our mezzanine and later to the adjacent building, and grew into a 7000 square feet one stop art shop by adding more framing and printing capacity for the local set dec community.

2018 I was seriously burned out, tired, sick, and had a serious creative block.
My personal relationship ended, and my husband moved to Europe. I agreed to keep leading the company with him being abroad. and while business was still growing, behind the scenes our happiness, our spirit was gone. Problems started to grow between the staff and the management.
Then COVID hit in February 2020 and brought everything to a standstill. I got divorced, was resting, healing, and painted in my little studio far away from the gallery.
Reading Simon Sinek’s The Infinite Game made me realize that this was exactly what I always wanted for AION. This was why I choose the name AION in 2002: Infinity!
The lockdown time was perfect to read everything I could about Business Management and Team Leadership.

When we went back to full time work April 2022, I had evaluated what was going wrong between all of us at the company and saw clearly that we needed massive changes.
It was a very complicated situation.

Because I saw AION always as my legacy I needed the company to sustain. Unfortunately my feeling was that this would not be realized being the family business, it used to be for the last 19 years.
June 2022 my ex surprised me with the proposition to sell the jointly owned corporation to someone in the film industry. Instantly I knew, that giving away my baby to an outsider, was not an option me. 

By then I had produced far more than 3000 pieces for AION, and invited artist friends from Canada, Europe, and Brazil to participate. I loved this company and was sure it would blossom again.
Even though the financial risks and costs were very high, I decided to buy him out in October 2022.
Now I was able to streamline the company, and let go four employees, a tough, but necessary decision. 

April 2023 the writers’ and later actors’ strike hit us the second time after 2007. We were so lucky that, with a small team and the financial help of  the TV commercials filming in town, we could keep the doors open.
Some time in August Los Angeles Propcart web designer Richard Scotten came in to pitch his project.  My team and I discussed the proposal and went for it. January 2024 we launched our amazing new AION Propcart site. Now two month later business is growing and the future looks bright again. 

These 22 years as a business owner were a constant up and down. The hardest were the last five years. What kept me going through personal and financial hardship was my determination to give AION up on my terms. I want to sell it to people I select for their passion and loyalty to my idea of a sustainable and ethic art business.

The people I am thinking of are already working with me. They are fantastic and all in one or the other way creative. They will for sure form a happy owner team that can weather all storms. I also want to make sure that all contributing artists will stay excited about their participation.
All these factors in place, AION will continue to give its clients the best service possible. We thrive to make the set dec department’s difficult job a bit easier. I was lucky to see on set how brilliant film people are, and how hard they work. Hurry up and wait! It is such a responsible and stressful work.
So we are hurrying for them. We make orders ready as early as possible, sometimes in 15 minutes or after hours, when we get called into the business on our art emergency line.
We will further treat old clients as friends and share a hug, a smile and appreciate that they take precious minutes out of their crazy schedule for a chat.
That’s what AION is for me about: Assisting our clients in bringing their visions to fruition and supporting all the contributing artist friends that entrusted their art to me.

Plus: I admit I love to spot our art in movies, series and commercials!

Looking back on my thirty-eight years as a professional artist, there is a lot I am able to use for my company: work ethic, striving for mastery, a certain tenacity to finish what I started, the ability to see patterns and analyze them, and a passion for networking. But I am also grateful for all the additional business skills learnt in the last twenty-one years.

Am I sad, that my personal art career had to take a step back for some time? Sure! But I built something I am very proud of. This I need to remember.
Together with:
-To have confidence in myself and my ability to overcome obstacles.
-To constantly check whether I am still on track to fulfill my life’s purpose of creating and guiding.
-Not to be afraid to act, albeit uncomfortable, to get back track if I loose my way.
-To get rest, be grateful, and enjoy the ride!

Vancouver, March 2024

Image Credits
Stefani Peter and Janessa Kucey

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This article was very helpful to reflect on my part in the founding and growing of AION .
if you are in the Canadian Pacific North-West, come by and have a visit

AION Art Gallery l 3879 2nd Ave, Burnaby, BC V5C3W7 l +1-778-379-9119